


The Ghosts of Never

by Orange_Clown



Series: The Legends Awaken [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Book/Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Family, Force Awakens/Star Wars Legends Fusion, Fusion, Gen, I'm still in mourning for the EU, Skywalker Family Feels, Star Wars Expanded Universe - Freeform, That which never was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 05:25:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8477044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orange_Clown/pseuds/Orange_Clown
Summary: Sometimes… sometimes they see someone that isn’t there.





	

Every now and then, when she's too exhausted to sleep, Rey sees a girl out of the corner of her eye.   
  
She’s got messy brown hair and brown eyes and a crooked smile lurking in the corners of her mouth.

Rey always smiles back.

(The girl is always gone when she wakes, but something of her lingers in the set of Rey’s jaw, the movements of her hands.)

(Her smile is her own.)  
*****

Han Solo has more regrets than anyone else knew.

He regrets his childhood. He regrets joining the Imperial Army. He regrets screwing up over and over and  _over_ -

But sometimes...

Sometimes he sees a younger wookie walking half a step behind Chewie, or a young girl with golden-red hair running through the Falcon.

He's _not_ the one in this crazy family with the freaky force powers.

(He sees them anyway.)

(He always drinks more afterwards.)

Han makes it a point to never look too closely at his ghosts.   
  
They'd drown him.

*****   
Ben Solo sees ghosts in the halls of the Jedi temple.

Most of them are rather boring - old Jedi who prattle on about duty and honor and the force - but, but one of them is different.

The boy lingers on the edges of the crowds, always watching, but no one else gives him a second glance.

Sort of like Ben in a way.

He speaks to the ghost in stolen moments, skipping out on lessons to meet him in the gardens where they're surrounded by plant life.

The boy says that once, he loved animals. He collected pets, as many as his parents let him have.

Ben's never had a pet. He doesn't see the point.

(Once, he sees the boy talking to a red-haired girl and feels something ugly blossom in his chest. The boy refuses to say who she is.)

(He never says who  _ he _ is.)

But as time goes on, he finds that his eye is continually caught by the dark shadows that swirls in the other boy’s footsteps.   


Ben asks what it is.

_ “My greatest mistake. _ ”

How could a mistake be so mesmerizing?

*****

Leia Organa sees a boy, sometimes.   
  
He's always running, tearing down the halls - calling for her, for Han, for Luke, for names she's never heard (but knows so well, if only she could  _ remember _ -)

He has brown hair and ice blue eyes (Luke’s eyes, her father’s eyes) and a boyish smile.   
  
He's never in exactly the same place - always a little too far off, close enough to hear but not to see, not really.   
  
_He_ only ever sees her once.   
  
His face breaks into a joyous hopeful smile and he actually stops, pauses his mad dash to nowhere.   
  
"Mom?" He whispers.   
  
But then the others exit the meeting room behind her, and when she looks at him again, he's vanished.   
  
(She thinks of Ben, and her heart breaks all over again.)

(She wonders when exactly she lost this possibility.)  
  
The next time she hears the footfalls, she doesn't look up.   
  
Leia knows that looking for ghosts accomplishes nothing but hurt.   
*****

He touches the darkness, because how could he not? It’s so _beautiful._

The other boy cries for him to stop, don't, go back,  -  _ don’t be what I was _  - but it feels so  _ good. _

(He only ever regrets it a little when he realizes that he can no longer hear the other boy’s voice. The dark has drowned him out.)

(But Ben knows that he has better things to do then mourn what never was.)

Later, Kylo Ren will make it a point to ignore ghosts.   
  
They're always the regrets of weak fools.   
*****   
Luke Skywalker has too many ghosts surrounding him for him to notice if one or two don't belong.   
  
Sometimes he sees a red-haired woman, but she has a lightsaber hanging on her hip and far too many dead Jedi have decided to spend their afterlife haunting him.   
  
He tries to look her up once, but most of the Jedi records had long since been destroyed.

(He knows better than to ask.)  
  
Occasionally a boy is there too, looking similar enough to the woman to be her son. But that's ridiculous - the old Jedi  weren't supposed to have kids. It’s what got them into this mess in the first place.  
  
His mind shies away from the fact that the child was probably murdered by Luke's own nephew.  
  
(He almost got it right.)  
  
Luke doesn't need ghosts to tell him his failures.  
*****  
" _What_ are you?" Rey whispers. 

(There are more important questions than who.)

~~ _"I'm a road never traveled."_ ~~

~~ _I''m a possibility that never happened."_ ~~

~~~~~~_ "I'm..." _ ~~

_..._

_..._

_"I'm a life that never lived."_   
  
A pause.   
  
_ "I'm not you." _   
  
But. "You could have been."   
  
Dreams cut through by the smell of blaster fire. The hiss and hum of lightsabers. The feel of tools in her hands and smudged oil in her hair.   
  
(A handful of years and a universe between them and still Rey can't always tell with memories are hers.   
  
Some things always breed true.)   
  
_ "In a way." _   
  
Fragments of memory - family and friends and a purpose and a goal.   
  
The Sword of the Jedi, the daughter of a princess with no throne and heir to a twice-tainted legacy.   
  
(The distance between them is true, but it might be more false than they know.)   
  
"You still could be."   
  
(Rey's so tired of being alone.)   
  
Another pause, quieter.   
  
_ "But then who's story is it?" _   
  
"Does it really matter?"   
  
(The story always ends the same.)   
  
*****   
On a planet far from the bright spot at the center of the galaxy, a girl opens her eyes. For a moment they seem to shimmer, caught between two different colors but - it must have been a trick of the light.   
  
She gets up and gets to work, never once glancing at the shadows lingering in the corners of her eyes. Every now and then her mouth will flash up in a quick smile, as if she's thought up something amusing.   
  
Rey doesn't look for ghosts.   
  
She doesn't need to.

**Author's Note:**

> I have all these ~feelings~ about the EU and TFA and how they might intersect and what might have been lost. One of them’s turning out to be a rather cracky mashup but the others all are bit more… melancholy. Sort of like this. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, but it makes me sad.
> 
> Probably something about how the Skywalker-Solos are doomed no matter what happens.


End file.
